What does the police killing of a homeless man in San Francisco have to do with the Arab Spring uprisings from Tunisia to Syria? The attempt to suppress the protests that followed. In our digitally networked world, the ability to communicate is increasingly viewed as a basic right. Open communication fuels revolutions — it can take down dictators. When governments fear the power of their people, they repress, intimidate and try to silence...

The operators of the San Francisco area subway system are facing intense criticism for temporarily cutting off underground cell phone and mobile-internet service at four stations in an attempt to foil a protest. On Thursday, authorities with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) removed power to underground cell phone towers at four stations to disrupt a protest against the recent death of Charles Hill, a homeless man who was shot dead on a train...

In recent years, online hackers who identified as being part of Anonymous and other groups have carried out dozens of high-profile online operations. When MasterCard and Visa suspended payments to WikiLeaks last December, hackers with Anonymous briefly took down the websites of both credit card giants. Other targets have included Sony, PayPal, Amazon, Bank of America, the Church of Scientology, and the governments of Egypt, Tunisia and Syria....

Many of the toughest sentencing laws responsible for the explosion of the U.S. prison population were drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which helps corporations write model legislation. Now a new exposé reveals ALEC has paved the way for states and corporations to replace unionized workers with prison labor. We speak with Mike Elk, contributing labor reporter at The Nation magazine. He says ALEC and private prison companies...

This week federal prosecutors in New Orleans finished presenting their case against police officers involved in the infamous Danziger Bridge shooting in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Four police officers are charged with shooting six unarmed civilians, killing two. A fifth officer is accused of helping them cover up their crimes. On Wednesday, the trial culminated in final arguments, leaving the case in a jury’s hands. A verdict...

This week, thousands of immigrants and their allies protested outside the White House, denouncing the Obama administration for deporting more than one million immigrants in the last two years. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Democrat from Illinois, was among the dozens of protesters arrested on Tuesday for peacefully occupying the White House sidewalk. He participated in the act of nonviolent civil disobedience one day after he received a letter from...

Hundreds of gay couples got married across New York state Sunday after it became the sixth and most populous state in the United States to recognize same-sex marriages. New York joins Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia in allowing same-sex unions. But gay marriage is still specifically banned in 39 states. On Sunday, Kitty Lambert, 54, and Cheryle Rudd, 53, were married with Niagara Falls in...

Thousands of inmates in at least 13 prisons across California’s troubled prison system have been on hunger strike for almost two weeks. Many are protesting in solidarity with inmates held in Pelican Bay State Prison, California’s first super-maximum security prison, over what prisoners say are cruel and unusual conditions in "Secure Housing Units." We play an audio statement from one of the Pelican Bay prisoners and speak to...

Late Friday night, New York became the sixth and largest state to approve same-sex marriage. After complicated behind-the-scenes negotiations, four Republican senators joined all but one Democrat to pass the bill in a close vote in the State Senate. The State Assembly, with a Democratic majority, had approved it earlier in the month. Two days after the passage of the measure, tens of thousands of people took to the streets for New York City’s...

The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously dismissed the largest class action lawsuit in history filed by 1.5 million current and former female employees of Wal-Mart, who say they were allegedly paid less and promoted less often than their male counterparts. The Court found women who worked at Wal-Mart did not have enough in common to constitute a "class" in a class action lawsuit. It did not address whether Wal-Mart had discriminated...

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